


Wake

by FuneralMute (AnnabelLenore)



Series: A Den of Foxes [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:22:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24152761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnabelLenore/pseuds/FuneralMute
Summary: Trauma is just another form of entropy that cares even less about the manufactured returned to order. Neither Orson nor Wilhuff had been sleeping well at all. A companion piece to "Entropy".
Relationships: Orson Krennic/Wilhuff Tarkin
Series: A Den of Foxes [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/516466
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	Wake

**Author's Note:**

> I've just really, really been going through it, so here's a piece of vent writing. Also very much influenced by the song "Question!" by System of a Down and the entirety of The Antler's album "Hospice".

Orson used to be a heavy and sound sleeper, the type of man to sprawl out, pass out, and sleep like the dead -- with or without the aid of added substances. His sleep was much lighter now. He had been partially roused since the first shuffles of his husband under the covers next to him. He was completely awake as he started muttering in his sleep. Orson strained to understand the mumbled jumble of words and sounds for any strain of meaning. The shuffles soon turned to thrashes and the mumbles to screaming. If he was not wide awake by now, the skeletal hand that had grasped with iron severity to his thin shirt completely pulled him out of the fog of sleepiness. It was equal parts comforting and frightening just how strong he could still be.

Wilhuff was sitting bolt upright now, staring wide-eyed into the darkness of the room, hand still wound into the fabric of Orson's bedclothes. (Screaming meant he was still alive though, right?) His screams had stopped but the echos still bounced around the high ceiling of the room for a few more beats. Orson knew that if he met his gaze that the other man would not be seeing him, or even the room around them. Physical presence means nothing to a mind stuck in repeating loops of memories not properly stored. Wilhuff was stuck far, far away.

As much of his life and his past that he shared with Orson, there were still intricacies to his life that he kept completely to himself. His husband did not know that this was not the first time night terrors had plagued him. It was his first time home after his initial excursion to the Carrion. His dreams dripped with blood for weeks despite the fact that he was safely and securely in his own bed in a well protected home. Eventually, however they all stopped. He rarely even dreamed pleasantries after that, but at least he was no longer being terrorized by his own mind. Perhaps it was the novelty of the new trauma, perhaps his brain was predispositioned due to his past, regardless these new nightmares -- hellish combinations of new and old horrors -- were not going away and were shaking him regularly.

Orson knew better than to try any tactic to divert his attention from the scenes his brain was concocting. He learned it would only serve to make things worse. A bruise was still healing on his cheek. He would simply have to lay and watch with that disgusting feeling of helplessness sitting on his chest and creeping into his throat.

Wilhuff’s head turned to one side and then the other with quick, jerking motions. His breathing was laboured and there was a light sheen of sweat on his forehead. Orson hoped the latter was just a cold sweat as a side effect of the night terror and not the herald of another fever. His shoulders were hunched. He was on edge, waiting for another attack. The predator was now the prey in these scenarios.

The hand that was grasping onto Orson’s shirt slowly released and came up to gingerly touch the right side of his own head and then bring his fingers before his eyes as if carefully inspecting them.

“Where…?” The former Grand Moff did not finish the question, if there ever really was one to begin with.

Orson slowly sat up and mulled about whether or not this meant that his husband was _awake_ awake. Taking the hypothesis of yes, he reached over to the bedside table and tapped a light on. Something between a hiss and a yelp leap from the other man’s throat as if he was a vampire being forced into garish sunlight. His head whipped around to Orson’s direction. The look on his face changed quickly from fear to anger.

“What the-the hell is going on?” He snapped. Despite the bite in his tone he was shaking all over, causing his words to jump and bumble about.

Krennic had gotten used to his attitude many years before any of this. He took a deep breath in through his nose. “Are you…” He stopped himself. No, that wasn’t the proper question. “Do you know where you are?”

Wilhuff’s gaze scanned around the dimly lit room, his damaged eye always lagging behind or simply ignoring to follow the uninjured one. He seemed genuinely bewildered for a few moments before full realization set in. He wrinkled his nose and glared.

“ _Of c-cour-ourse_ I know where I am. What kind of... what kind of question is that?”

In all of this, Andronicus, who was curled up at the foot of the bed, only raised his head once and then went back to his previous resting position. His particular breed was known for developing hearing loss prematurely which was a reasonable enough explanation for his seeming lack of concern. It could also be loyalty, or laziness, or all of the above. He was the only one getting a decent night’s sleep on the regular. There were dozens of rooms here, Orson could choose to instead sleep in any one of them, though he doubted he would actually get any better of night’s rest in a bed of his own.

Orson watched him as his gaze flicked away from him and to a shadowed corner of the room. He did not bother to follow his line of sight -- he knew that there was nothing there. Instead, his gaze looked him up and down. He noted the way his pajamas hung so much looser from his frame now, the way the shadows in the hallows of his eyes and cheeks in certain lighting made it look like there was nothing more than a defleshed skull on his shoulders. _Pitiful_ was a word that came to his mind, but he knew how inappropriate it was for a man like Tarkin.

“Do you want me to get you some water?” Such menial tasks were what they had droids for, did they not? However, there were times where any whirring of machinery would set Tarkin off, and Orson was not interested in exacerbating the situation. (To be perfectly honest, it seemed like nearly anything could set him off with no real algorithm to predict it. The man had become a human bomb with no wires and no buttons to easily interface with. Calling on the aid of one of the household’s servants was, therefore, out of the question as well.) On one hand, he felt uneasy leaving him alone for even a moment without any other supervision, however in equal amounts he was looking for any chance to bolt.

There was no reply from Wilhuff -- not verbal, not a nod, not even a shift in posture except from his continued shaking. Orson waited another moment and with still no reply, he slid from the bed. He was careful to keep his footfalls quiet.

He was not interested in playing round-the-clock nursemaid, though thankfully they were in a position where they did not have to worry about securing those aids. That was not the contract. In sickness and in health was much easier to bear when you were continuously in the rich category. He was not always there anyway -- he still had his own professional duties to attend to… and other beds to warm, both across the galaxy and sometimes even here in far off rooms of the compound. It was no secret, not even to Wilhuff. It was expected. The feeling was mutual. Those needs were certainly not being itched between the two. Though despite the mutual understanding, as he lay heated and winded next to a much younger man (and often much inferior officer) there was a pang deep within his heart that chilled him every time.

When he came back into the bedroom, the cat was nestled in Wilhuff's lap and his hands were in the feline's fluffy white fur, not petting him, simply latching on for anything to ground him to reality. His gaze had shot up as soon as the door creaked open and he stared at Orson for a while before recollection sank in.

"Here." Orson offered the glass out. All of Wilhuff’s thought processes seemed to be on a delay and it was several seconds before after a few rapid blinks he reached out. His hand, like the rest of him, was still trembling terribly and while both their hands were on it the water sloughed about. As Wilhuff retracted his arm, Orson still kept a hold of the glass.

“Actually, I think it’s better if I hold it.”

“I am no-not a child.”

Orson rolled his eyes in both exasperation and mockery. “Then spill it all over yourself.” Despite his words, he still kept the glass in his hand. He was not actually going to let him fumble and drop it and also he wanted to see if Wilhuff was going to really fight him over it.

Wilhuff stared at the moving water for another second or two and with a heavy sigh resigned with “Fine.” Orson wished he had fought him on it, just for the sake of some feigned normalcy.

He carefully sat down beside him and helped steady the glass through a few small sips before safely placing it on the end table on Wilhuff’s side of the bed. He then got up, went round to his side, and slid back into bed next to him. Wilhuff was still sitting up, gaze downcast, and Orson watched as his expression changed with his unspoken thoughts. Somber was their totality.

Orson knew that Wilhuff was not a man to wish to be coddled, but stars he looked so damned sad. It was the middle of the night and sleepiness was beginning to wrap its wooliness around his brain again, so without giving it any more thought, Orson moved himself right up to the other’s side and wrapped his arms around him. He waited for an objection, but there was none. Rather, there was the resignation of muscles relaxing as he leaned back into him. A soft, sleepy grin spread across Orson’s face. He relished even these little victories. He squeezed his arms around him tighter to pull him even closer. Despite the fact that physically he seemed to be relaxing, he was still shaking. Wilhuff rested his head back against Orson’s shoulder and nuzzled up against his neck, eyes closed. The deep intake of breath he took was still jagged. That little smile that was on Orson’s face was morphing into a more melancholy expression. He rested his cheek against the top of his husband’s head and rubbed his hand up and down one of his thin arms.

"Its going to be a--" He cut himself off again. "I'm right here. I'm right here. You’re not going to get rid of me just yet."

The year preceding, when Wilhuff had returned from his meeting with the Emperor stating his official resignation from his position, Orson was certain that while there he had had his soul (or whatever the man had in place of one) sucked out from his body. There was a new type of hollowness to him now -- it was in his eye, the way he would sometimes talk and hold himself. Wilhuff was not well when he had come back to his duties after his time recovering from his narrow escape, a duration of “rest” that really should have been much longer. He was not well after collapsing during a meeting that landed him another extended stay in the medbay. Such failure of mind and body had finally forced his hand to make the decision to resign. Orson knew, hell any one could see despite how much Tarkin may have tried to hide it, that that was as much of a blow as the explosion of the Death Star itself. Such failures deeply nagged at Krennic as well, but he still had strong enough of a constitution that such wounds were able to form jagged scars instead of continuing to fester.

He had hoped that moving permanently back to Eriadu would give Wilhuff the space and tranquility to regain some of his strength and some of his self back, away from the world of high stress military meetings, monochrome medbays and bacta tanks. This new treatment was to be palliative, at least that was the unspoken understanding. Some days were better than others; everything was an ebb and flow.

Orson did not always understand or rather care to understand the onslaught of medical jargon, or all the numbers and squiggles on blinking, barking monitors. (His time for such study was limited, however, as he was not always allowed bedside by orders of either the medical staff or Tarkin himself. When his counterpart was cogent enough there had been many an argument on that.) On sparse occasions his attention sometimes fixated on the detailed scans of the brain and spinal cord: three-dimensional images illuminating flecks and pools of dark and light that should not _normally_ be there amongst the usual anatomy of curving peaks and valleys, noninvasive dissections revealing hidden labyrinths. _Subdural sclerosis...evidence of tauopathy…TIA...vertebral fusion…_ and on and on. He quickly brushed off with bitter annoyance the sequences of suffixes, prefixes, roots, and acronyms that were not part of his wheelhouse. He was even less interested in a full course of the anatomic pathology. He decided that he would much rather not know at all; perhaps in this case ignorance would save him some grief. Or perhaps he was just too exhausted anymore to put in the effort. What he did understand, however, was that the synthesis of all of this was that bit by bit it was taking parts of Wilhuff away. He could appreciate the intricate architecture and engineering of the human body, the form and function of each piece as it connected to the greater whole, but could not make peace with the frailty of it. He knew that the fate of every human was this eventual degradation, just as old fortress walls crumble over centuries of brutalization. But where the brain breeds logic it also breeds in equal conviction fantasy. Wilhuff had always been a man of strength and iron, a brutal force to be in awe of. But iron rusts and Orson was yet to find radical acceptance of this dialectic exercise.

Orson tapped the light back to off. Wilhuff was already asleep again. He would not remember any of this in the morning. Krennic carefully wiggled himself so that he could rest his own head on the pillow while still keeping his other’s back against him -- he knew how essential it was for Wilhuff to not have his back exposed while he slept. He was not his nurse, but he was still his husband, and he was going to make him comfortable if he could. It was as much an act of service as it was a palliative measure unto himself.


End file.
